~Twenty-Four~
Tifa wasn't exactly happy about Cloud's decision to leave on his solo road trip. For the most part everyone understood and supported whatever he wanted to do that could help him but the only person who seemed particularly 'happy' was Reno and it was because he would have the apartment to himself. After making sure it was fine with Rayna if he stayed in his place, Cloud told Reno he could use the bedroom while he was gone. There was no point in him sleeping on the couch if the bed was going unused.
He wasn't sure how long he was going to be gone. The seasons were changing and it was getting cooler out so at the very least he knew he'd have to be back before any snow hit the ground. He wasn't about to try and drive a motorcycle around in the winter months. He didn't plan on being gone that long though. Maybe a month, month and a half at most.
Aerith had suggested a going away party and Tifa said they could have one at the bar. Zack didn't like the idea of it, purely because he hated the idea of calling it a 'goodbye' party. He was stressed out over Cloud's decision to head out on his own for several weeks.
Cloud understood. All he could do was reassure Zack that he was going to be fine and that the trip was going to help both of them. He really believed that. With him out of the way for a while, hopefully Zack would have one less thing occupying his time and perhaps he'd be able to work on strengthening his relationship with Aerith.
Earlier on the day the party was to be held, while Marlene was over visiting a friend for a play date, Cloud brought over to the bar something he'd found that he was sure Marlene was going to really like. Of all the people he was leaving in Midgar, she was the one he really felt bad about leaving. They'd been spending a lot of time together in the mornings and she actually cried when he told her he'd be going away and wouldn't be back for some weeks.
He wasn't able to give her an exact date for when he'd be back, which didn't help. He promised her they'd still be able to talk on the phone every day if that's what she wanted and that she could call him any time, day or night. She brightened up at the prospect of travel gifts when he told her he'd find something fun to bring back for her. He'd found something great to give her in the meantime.
One of the places Zack had dragged him into to look at engagement rings for Aerith had a back room of the shop filled with antiques, ornaments, and knick-knacks and the sort. He went back there on his own the following day because it looked like there were some interesting things there. That's where he found what he wanted to give Marlene. He'd have to set it up in her room and wanted to do it while she wasn't home.
It took some convincing for Tifa to let him inside the bar early which he wasn't supposed to see until the party. She allowed him to come in through the back into the kitchen and go straight upstairs without seeing the front room and actual bar area. She went with him upstairs to see what it was he'd brought over.
"Is it a projector?" she asked when he revealed what he'd brought to set up.
"Yeah," he confirmed.
"What's it project?" she inquired next, her tone apprehensive.
"You don't have to sound so concerned," he pointed out lightly from where he stood at the dresser unwrapping a cord from around the device. She smiled.
"Sorry," she said. "Where did you find it?" she asked.
"Antique place," he told her simply.
"You were antiquing?" she was quick to say.
"Yeah, secret fetish," he responded with a straight face.
"Not anymore," she replied, making him smirk. "You're really doing it, huh?" she questioned as she sat on the end of Marlene's bed. He looked back at her in question. "Taking this trip on your own without any plan whatsoever. And on a motorcycle? What are you going to do if you run into bad weather?"
"Pull over?" he answered with a shrug. She sighed at that, crossing her arms loosely in front of her. He snorted a little at her serious expression. "The worst that'll happen is it will rain and I'll get wet," he reasoned. "And I wouldn't say I have no plan. I have some idea of where I want to go, and I won't be gone that long. Really, having a party to see me off makes no sense."
"But you will come back right?" she asked after a moment. He looked back at her.
"I'm coming back," he said surely. "You guys are my family," he told her before searching out a receptacle behind the dresser that he could use to plug in a sensor box that the power cord for the projector was attached to.
"Family. Right," Tifa said as she watched him move the dresser from the wall a little and crouch down. "I'm like your sister," she noted flatly.
"If that were true, pretty sure some of things we did with each other are illegal," Cloud joked, smirking at her a little.
"Shut up," Tifa replied through a smile that faded quickly. "Marlene's really going to miss you," she pointed out.
"Just her, huh?" Cloud asked when he had plugged in the sensor box. He stood back up to slide the dresser back to the wall.
"Obviously not," Tifa said. "Promise you'll come back to save me if I'm ever in trouble?" she added jokingly. They both knew she was making reference to the promise he'd made her years ago when leaving Nibelheim for Midgar.
"You know, I might have to say 'no' this time," he responded with his back turned at first. He looked back at her as he explained. "Last time I made that promise it turned out to be kind of a pain in the ass." He cracked a bit of a smile to let her know he was just kidding.
"You're so annoying," she told him, shaking her head.
He picked up a small remote from the dresser and leaned back against the piece of furniture as he faced her. "I'd never let anything happen to you or Marlene," he spoke seriously, bringing some deeper emotion to Tifa's eyes.
"Alright," she said through an exhale, standing up. "What's this thing for Marlene?" she asked. Cloud handed her the small remote and told her to click the switch to the on position. The clicking of the switch was detected immediately by the sensor box in the wall and started the projector. She was speechless by the result before telling him, "She's going to love it."
He was hoping Marlene wouldn't notice the projector sitting on the dresser if he put one of her stuffed animals in front of it. He didn't want her to see it until a little later when it was darker. Luckily she didn't notice it and so it was a surprise for her when he and Tifa brought her upstairs later during the party. She was thrilled at the idea of a surprise and bounded upstairs with them.
"Okay, sit here," Cloud told her as he directed her to sit on her bed. Tifa stood in the doorway watching. "Take this," he said as he handed her the remote. "When I turn the light off, flick the switch," he told her and she nodded.
He didn't need to move her stuffed animal out of the way of the projector to have it work. It was pointed in the direction of the ceiling so when she flicked the switch to turn it on it was going to be like magic.
"Ready?" he asked as he stood at the wall ready to turn off her bedroom light. She nodded again emphatically. "Now," he said and at the same time he turned off the main light, bringing darkness down on the room, Marlene pressed the switch on the remote in her hands to the on position.
With that the ceiling and some of the top portion of the walls lit up in a scatter of bluish white light in the shape of thousands of stars. Marlene gasped at the sight and her face lit up with joy and surprise.
"It's the light switch for the stars!" she exclaimed, thinking back to the fantasy land Cloud had described for her not too long ago where you could pull down a light switch in the air to see the night sky.
"Not so dumb, right?" Cloud said to her from next to the bed. Marlene set down the remote on the bed and stood up on the mattress so she could hug him tightly and thank him. He had a hard time then not getting teared up, having to remind even himself in that moment that he wasn't leaving forever and that he as the one who'd wanted to go.
A minute later Marlene was rushing down the stairs wanting to tell Aerith about the surprise in her room. Tifa started to follow after her and Cloud stopped her.
"Hey, I, uh, have something for you too," he told her as he reached into his one pocket for a little grey velvet covered box he'd been keeping hidden until then.
"Another antique find?" she asked when he placed it in her hand.
"Sort of," he confirmed. He had found it at the same place he'd gotten the projector.
He watched as Tifa opened the box to see what was inside and he saw her expression first as one of confusion and then disbelief. There was a necklace inside. A silver chain with a pendant attached. The pendant was silver with a small circular cut iridescent bluish purple gemstone inset. It had caught his attention in the shop because he'd seen something like it before.
"Cloud," she said as she looked up at him in shock. "This looks just like the one my mom had," she recounted in awe.
He nodded. "Yeah, when I saw it, I thought of that right away. The shop owner said the stone is genuine Nibelite, like hers was, so you know maybe whoever made it was the same jeweller who made hers," he suggested.
"I lost it in the fire," she said as she touched the pendant, picking it up between her thumb and forefinger. "I can't believe you found this," she said, still sounding like she was in shock. "Thank you," she said almost tearfully when she was finally able to look at him again.
He lowered his eyes a second, feeling a bit awkward about how emotional the gift actually seemed to make her.
"Um, I'm thinking I might travel up that way before coming back here, if the weather's okay and the roads are dry enough," he told her and she cleared her throat a little.
"Nibelheim?" she asked and he nodded.
"Yeah, I know there's supposedly nothing really there anymore, but I'd like to visit it again just once. Maybe lay down some flowers or something for my mom," he explained. "I could put some down for your parents if you want," he offered and she smiled.
"I'd really love that," she said before reaching her arms around him to hug him. "You better be careful out there," she ordered.
"You've got nothing to worry about, Teef," he replied.
Nothing to worry about…
000
"You can figure this out," he pep talked himself on the side of the road while looking at a map he'd picked up in the last real town he'd stayed in.
He was trying not to admit to himself he was lost but there wasn't really another word for it at that point. When he'd initially left Midgar nearly a week earlier, his plan had been to head directly south, down towards Junon, and onward to the most southern ferry port where he could board his bike and cross over the intercontinental waters to Gongaga.
However, he'd been so hyped up over the thought of some kind of road adventure being the best thing for him that he'd abandoned that first plan and decided to head north first toward Kalm, thinking he could then move east and do a loop back around to Junon, heading through the Grasslands and through a mountain pass into the greater Junon region and finally to the city.
If he'd been smart he would have just taken the mine access to get through. There was an old retired mine in part of the range with something of a road cut through it. It was pretty easy to navigate with signage.
He could have just taken the easy way, but a villager back in the Grasslands had told him there was a much more scenic route to take through the mountains. It wasn't supposed to take longer than a few hours but after spending three feeling that he was still just ascending the range he was pretty sure he'd been led into a trap like some idiot from a bad horror movie.
From inside his coat pocket his phone was vibrating, which meant he must have actually hit a high enough point to get back some reception which had been lost for the last few hours. He let it go to his voicemail without checking who was calling, focused on the map and first trying to identify where he'd ended up in the pass. It seemed like a bigger priority. Only a moment passed though before the same person, he assumed, was attempting to reach him a second time.
He did unzip his pocket to get the phone out then, looking first at who the caller was. Zack.
"Hey," he said into his phone while still looking at the map resting on the seat of his bike.
"Uh, hey," Zack said back in a pretty sharp tone. "You remember when we talked last and you said you were going to answer my calls, or at least return them within an hour so I don't have a damn heart attack wondering if you're like, I dunno, dead on the side of the road somewhere?"
"I'm sorry," Cloud said as he had to tilt his head and use his shoulder to keep his phone pressed to his ear so he could have his hands free. A gust of wind blew over him and nearly stole the map out from his grasp. He had to slap it back down to keep from lifting off. "I didn't have reception for a while."
"What about last night?" Zack questioned.
"I was asleep. I text you this morning," he pointed out.
"And how am I supposed to know it's you and not just some psycho with your phone?" Zack asked back fast, making Cloud sigh.
"Nope, just this psycho with the phone still, sorry," Cloud replied with some frustration. The longer it was taking to even figure out where he was, the more it was starting to make him feel panicked.
"Are you okay?" Zack asked him in a less annoyed tone then.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he said.
"Where are you?" Zack asked.
"Wish I could tell you," was Cloud's response that Zack took some offense to.
"Look, you know I'm confined here. There's no chance of me chasing you down and dragging you back here, as much as I'd like to," he reminded Cloud who scoffed.
"I'm not worried about that," he said. "I mean, I can't tell you 'cause I'm not even sure. I'm stuck in the mountains somewhere."
"What mountains?" Zack asked.
"West of the Grasslands," Cloud told him.
"You heading into Junon?" was Zack's next prodding question.
"One day I hope," Cloud said back dryly. He heard Zack huff then.
"Okay, you know, I get that you wanted this trip and this time on your own to sort through some shit, but—" Zack started to sound like he was heading into lecture mode so Cloud stopped him.
"And I really appreciate you understanding that," he said, cutting him off and making Zack exhale forcefully. "Look, everything's fine," he assured Zack, even if he was feeling pretty tense over his inability to get himself through that mountain pass on his own. "It's been fine since I left Midgar. It's going to continue to be fine."
"Are you sleeping better while on the road?" Zack asked, his tone more neutral.
Cloud shook his head a little. "I guess about the same," he said.
"The anxiety attacks?" Zack inquired about next.
"There's…been a couple," Cloud told him quietly. "It's…whatever," he added, not really wanting to talk about it. He'd only just set out on his trip and hadn't accomplished yet any of what he had set out to do so he didn't expect to magically be any better than he was when he left Midgar.
"You can still call you know, if you need to," Zack told him and he nodded to himself.
"Yeah, I know. I'll be okay," he said.
"You're being safe and taking breaks and—"
"Yeah," Cloud confirmed. "How's everyone doing?" he asked, trying to switch topics.
"Uh, you know, I think everyone would be a lot better if they didn't think you were lost in the mountains somewhere right now," Zack answered at first.
"Probably don't tell them that then," Cloud suggested, getting a dry laugh from Zack in return.
"Yeah, um, they're fine. They're good. They miss you," Zack told him, making Cloud smile a little.
"Tell them the same from me," he said.
"I will," Zack agreed. "You still have plenty of your meds right?" he asked then and Cloud confirmed.
"Don't worry alright?" Cloud tried to tell him but he knew nothing he said would stop Zack from doing just that. "I'm gonna go now, okay? There's supposed to be a storm rolling in through the area tonight and I don't want to be stuck where I am when it hits."
"Can you please call me whenever you hit up your next hotel or motel, or whatever?" Zack asked. "The texting thing is fine but I miss talking to you buddy." he added sadly. "You think you can do that for me, Psycho Spike?" he questioned when Cloud didn't respond immediately. He lost focus on what Zack had been saying when he finally figured out on the map where he was.
"Sure," he agreed finally.
"Good, love you, bud," Zack said, ready to let him go.
"You too," Cloud said back.
After their call, Cloud spent a few minutes trying to memorize the route he needed to take to get through the rest of the pass and make it to the other side of the range to hopefully get into Junon before five o'clock when most businesses would be closing.
He didn't know how much time it would take to sit down with that lawyer who supposedly was going to be able to give him the shares Rand had left him. He hoped not longer than a few minutes. Rand's information told him all he'd have to do is provide identification and sign something.
When he finally hit flatter ground on the other side of the pass he started getting nervous and he didn't really know why but it had him thinking that the real reason he decided to take his time getting to Junon was that he was apprehensive. He wanted everything to go smoothly.
His plan was to visit the law office and a few of the hospitals to show around a picture he'd printed off of Angeal. He figured he'd stay the night in a hotel, hopefully one with a covered parking lot so he didn't have to worry about his bike taking a beating in the apparent mega storm that looked to be on the horizon. He'd been watching it in the distance as he neared the city. It was slow moving but looked like it was going to be powerful.
In the morning he was going to go around to a handful of clinics in the city to again check for anyone who might match Angeal's description. Since Junon was a big city with more medical resources, he thought that if Angeal had made it out of the helicopter explosion alive and needed treatment there was a chance he'd get flown out to Junon.
The prospect of maybe finding Angeal in one of the facilities there had him anxious. Visiting a larger city where he there was a higher chance of being recognized compared to those small towns and villages he'd been passing through on the way had him anxious. Meeting with a lawyer who'd known Rand well enough that the man had trusted him with keeping the shares made him anxious. Really everything about heading into Junon had him anxious.
He wondered how much the lawyer knew about Rand's background and what the shares were even about. He wondered if the man would already be familiar with his history or the Shinra scandal surrounding him and Zack. He couldn't imagine what the conversation with him was going to be like. In general, people like that also made him anxious. Anyone in a suit or who seemed like someone of power. He knew it must be because of what he'd gone through. It was hard to trust those types. Hard to trust anyone really.
So far, the trip hadn't done a lot for him in clearing his head the way he thought it might.
Being on his own didn't really make him feel less accountable to anyone, less guilty, or freer than he had felt before. It just made him more aware of how lost he really felt as to where he was going with his life in general and made him question the likelihood of him ever embracing a normal life.
What was he even supposed to do with that kind of life? Was he really going to be able to handle working a job for the next fifty to sixty years of his life as just a regular person? Of course not. The way things had been going it was more likely the post-traumatic stress would eventually consume him and he'd just became the crazy person living alone in an apartment with boarded up windows yelling at the walls.
At least he was out of Midgar and that part he was happy about. Being away from it finally and out on the open road, he actually started to accept he really hated it there. He supposed it was home. Home was where his family was but if his family ever decided to call home literally anywhere else in the world, he'd be on board.
When he rolled into Junon city it was pretty near to five. He'd already had the address of the law office saved on his phone before even leaving Midgar and knew how to get there pretty quickly. He was happy to see the 'Open' sign still facing out in the one window. The building looked older, more architecturally interesting than almost any of the buildings in Midgar. After parking his bike out front he wasted no time in entering the front door to inquire about meeting with Wally Gaspard.
He'd certainly expected to be told he'd have to make an appointment to come back, hopefully the next day or as soon as possible. What he never anticipated was coming to find out the man was taking a holiday and wouldn't be returning to the office for another week. His stomach sank and for a moment he just stared at the receptionist after she informed him Gaspard wouldn't be available for days.
She asked if he wanted to book an appointment to see him when he was back at work and if he wanted to leave a message on file in case Wally called in to the office for any messages while on holiday. He agreed to both. He didn't have much choice otherwise.
A week. What was he going to do for a week? He supposed he could leave town and come back later or at the end of his trip, but that would mess with his route he'd planned out. He'd really wanted to head north to Nibelheim after hitting Gongaga. In fact, there was no way he was giving up on that plan. Waiting around for the lawyer made more sense.
That meant he was going to have plenty of time to visit the hospitals and clinics, and do anything else he wanted. Sightsee? He didn't know what there was to do in the city alone. Visit a bar? Find someone to hook up with and bring him or her back to his hotel room? Initiate a pointless relationship with the person knowing it clearly wasn't going anywhere since he was going to be leaving in a week?
He thought bitterly about Marco and his own stupidity for a few minutes while sitting on his bike outside trying to decide which hotel he wanted to spend his money on. He scrolled through the options and rates on his phone, using the guest internet available from the law office.
"Parking on site in structure," he read aloud of one of the hotels with a midrate. Works for me, he thought and settled on the place, checking out the address the directions he needed to take to get there.
He did call Zack as promised when he was in his room, letting him know that he'd survived the mountains and made it to Junon. He told Zack he might be spending a couple nights there in the city, telling him he was probably going to get his bike serviced because it was acting up a little. Of course it was a lie, though after he said it he considered it wouldn't be a bad idea to have his ride checked out while he had the time. He'd never managed to talk himself into being honest with Zack about why he was out there. He would probably tell him when he got back, about the shares anyway. If nothing came of his Angeal search his would probably just keep his mouth shut about that part.
While the hotel did have a covered parking structure for his bike and was decent enough, it only served breakfast in the mornings so he would need to venture out again for dinner. He wasn't really hungry. He never really was. He'd seen some vending machines near an ice machine at the end of the hall when he'd been heading to his room and contemplated just getting something from one of them. Ultimately, the responsible and naggy adult part of his brain did actually win over and have him leaving to find a place to get some real food.
There weren't a lot of restaurant options in close proximity to the hotel. There were enough that he didn't have to venture any further if he didn't feel up to it. That night though, he thought maybe he'd take the chance. Even though the sky was starting to darken and he could hear some rumbling of thunder in the distance he figured he could probably catch a cab back to the hotel if he needed to or there was probably public transit that wasn't too difficult to navigate.
There'd been a brochure in his hotel highlighting some places around the city with generally good ratings. There was a grill house that sounded pretty good about four city blocks away. Four city blocks. It didn't seem like much until walking it.
While out that way and sitting down to dinner, he couldn't help looking up the distance to an address that he'd committed to memory some time ago. An address he'd made note of on an envelope he seen in the facility in Gongaga. Rand's supposed address. The address was for a townhouse not so far away from the restaurant and he couldn't help but wonder if he shouldn't stop by there.
No body had been found at the reactor site in Midgar though the authorities seemed pretty sure Rand had never left the building once he'd gone inside. If it was Rand. Someone had been on that surveillance footage. Someone had broken into the reactor and disappeared. The assumption was that it was Rand because of the items left on site. His identification had been there. There'd been no reported sign of the man anywhere else afterward, at least nothing that had ever made it into the news. The recording Rand had sent him also seemed to confirm the man had taken his own life. That's what all the evidence pointed to.
And yet…something just bothered Cloud about it and he had a hard time recognizing why exactly he was bothered by it and was reluctant to accept it. He supposed it was because he felt guilty, like maybe if he hadn't reacted the way he did when Rand cornered him at the college that the man wouldn't have done what he did. But how else was he supposed to react? And why did he even care? He was bothered by the idea that Rand would give up on life because he couldn't live without some kind of forgiveness. His forgiveness, which the man had no right to ask for or expect.
That recording the man sent to him had really truly messed with his head. He'd gone through so many emotions because of it. He'd been hurt and upset, pissed off that Rand had exerted his control to the very end by getting the last word. Whether all of what he'd said in the recording had been true or not, sending that before disappearing meant he got that last word. There was no way for Cloud to refute or argue anything he said, or to call bullshit on any of it. Because he couldn't argue it, a part of his brain somehow couldn't fight accepting the things spoken as true. He really hated that.
While he'd had those negative emotional reactions, he'd also had moments of gratitude, though he was cautious about it. He didn't like to think about Rand knowing him at all as a person and caring about what he valued, but the man obviously knew his feelings towards those project shares and how eventually he'd probably want to have them because having that ownership back over himself, even if just in a symbolic way, meant a lot to him.
So far though, he didn't have the shares in his possession and whether things would work out smoothly or not in getting them remained to be seen. He would probably worry a lot about it until that lawyer came back and he couldn't seem to stop questioning Rand's fate. As genuine as the man had come across in his recorded message, he was a manipulator and having made a literal career over controlling people and situations, he had to wonder if someone like him could actually experience the kind of pain that would make him want to end his life.
He decided he couldn't not go to that address to see what or who would be there. If he knocked on the door and Rand actually answered, that would immediately answer many of his questions and settle in his head once and for all whether his instinct about him was actually right or wrong.
It was starting to rain as he travelled out to the residential area a few blocks away. There were rows and rows of townhouses that all looked pretty much the same. On the end of a line of the homes he found the one he was looking for. There was nothing really remarkable about it other than a fading potted plant on the front porch and a welcome mat in front of the door. There were some lights on that he could see through the windows of the ground level and a car parked in the driveway. He assumed someone must be home.
Hesitant and second-guessing his decision, he stood for a moment on the sidewalk staring up at the house and listening to the rumbling of thunder from the storm that seemed to be closing in quickly. The sound felt like a warning and a plea for him to turn around and leave. Even his inner voice was trying to tell him he shouldn't be there.
Nothing was going to stop him though now that he was there. He pushed himself forward, up the two front steps onto the porch and knocked three times on the door.
It took a few moments but he could see the shadow of someone approaching the door from behind the blinds over the window. The person was definitely shorter than Rand. It was a woman who answered the door and immediately in his head he was questioning if she was his ex-wife or maybe a current one. Or a girlfriend. She must have had some association with him, was what he thought.
"Can I help you?" she asked when he looked back at her and hadn't introduced himself or said anything at all to tell her why he was there.
"Hi, sorry, I was just looking for someone who used to live here," he said and she seemed a little confused.
"Who used to live here?" she repeated his words in question, and he realized what he'd said hadn't made much sense.
"I mean, this is the address I have for him. I guess I just wanted to check, um…" he struggled to explain something that sounded really ridiculous in his head. What was he supposed to say to her? The guy might have committed suicide but part of me kind of doubts it so I just wanted to stop by and see for myself?
"Oh," she said to that, smiling politely. "I'm sorry, it's just me here," she said. "I've been renting this unit now for a couple of months," she stated. "Whoever you're looking for must be gone," she added and he nodded.
"Looks like it," Cloud replied. "Thanks, I'm sorry to bother you," he said and just gave a short nod in acknowledgement before shutting the condo door.
So that was that. He wasn't sure how much he really learned from taking the trip over to Rand's old place. He supposed it was becoming more and more likely that the man really had ended his own life and he just needed to accept it.
Cold rain was coming down steadily when he was heading back out of the residential neighborhood and out to the nearby main road. He'd known there was a good chance of getting wet but he hadn't thought about the temperature dropping. It wasn't pleasant. He made it about a block back the way he'd come from the restaurant a little earlier, trying to walk close to the buildings and under their awnings to stay as dry as possible but he gave in after some minutes and chose to take refuge in a sports bar for a few hours, until the storm passed.
There he sat at the bar counter slowly getting himself drunk and watching some of the games being played on the screens mounted to the walls. He took the time to answer some text messages. Some that had come from Tifa's phone he could tell were actually from Marlene. After nearly an hour of sitting there, waiting for the rain to stop and it still hadn't let up. In fact it seemed to be getting worse.
During one of the game breaks on the one television was a local weather update and the meteorologist was warning about 'severe inclement weather' with high risk of flooding, especially near the waterfront as the levels were rising rapidly. They were advising people not to drive if possible. That's when Cloud started wondering about how easy it was going to be to get transportation back to the hotel. It wasn't looking great.
When the break ended and the game came back on screen, Cloud turned his eyes back to his phone as he rested his head in his one hand. A voice a few minutes later asking if the barstool seat next to him was taken had him lowering his arm and turning his head, looking to confirm the person was directing the question at him. He had no idea if it was taken, he hadn't been facing that way and it was pretty obvious whether a bar stool was open or not without asking. But then maybe the person was actually visually impaired.
For a second he felt like maybe there was something wrong with his own vision when he found himself looking up at the ghost—no, the liar in front of him. He'd known it all along in his gut. His instinct had been right. It was Rand.
He was barely aware of his own movements as he was immediately standing up to leave. He couldn't really feel his feet at all. All he felt was the thudding in his chest.
"Wait stay," Rand said, and it sounded more like a directive to him than a plea.
"Stay?" he echoed sharply. "What do you think I am?"
"No, I didn't mean it like that," Rand defended himself apologetically. "Just, please just don't leave," he said.
Cloud scoffed as he dropped himself back down the few inches onto the bar stool. He refused to look at Rand as he shook his head and focused his eyes on the television screen above instead, though he wasn't looking at the game.
"Unbelievable," he muttered to himself and already he could feel like any minute tears would be building in his eyes. He was angry but he was also relieved and that bothered him. "I just knew it. I knew that you cared too much about yourself to do something like throw yourself into raw mako. What a damn joke," he remarked.
"Are you looking for me?" the man asked him, not attempting to explain himself yet.
"Why the hell would I be looking for you?" Cloud fired at him as he finally looked at him again.
He could feel his adrenaline surging and it was making him sweat. Rand was alive. The guy was alive and inches away from him. He'd spent months thinking he'd possibly died in a painful and horrific manner and that it may have had something to do with him. He'd been convinced to come out to Junon at the promise of the shares. Had it just been all a set up? A lure.
"You went by my old address asking for me," Rand said and he scoffed first before he questioned it.
"How do you know that?" he asked back.
"The current tenant living there contact me. She described you," the man revealed, not going into detail about how the two knew each other.
"God," Cloud uttered under his breath as he shook his head. He was looking around then, anywhere but at Rand directly. "I wanted confirmation," he admitted while jiggling his one leg nervously, trying to fight the urge to flee.
"Of?"
"Your death obviously," he threw back at the man. "Why would you stage something like that?" he asked with disgust, managing to look at Rand briefly a few times, but never longer than a split second. "And then leave me that goddamn confession like some kind of suicide note. Just to make me feel like shit?"
"No," Rand denied.
"What're you having?" the bartender asked Rand suddenly. Rand said nothing to him as he stared at Cloud. "Buddy?" the bartended spoke up again when he got no response. "It's a no parking zone unless you're paying," he said and Rand submitted and asked for a whiskey on ice.
"That's not why," Rand said to Cloud then. "I wanted you to be able to move on. To not have to worry about me interfering in your life again," he claimed and it had Cloud looking at him with surprise and doubt.
"You did though," he countered. "I was moving on when you showed up at my job and destroyed the routine I worked really hard to build that was keeping me fucking sane," he argued loudly.
The bartender set down Rand's drink then, and Cloud found him pointing towards the bottle that was in front of him with an inquisitive look about whether he wanted another yet or not. He just shook his head and the guy departed.
"I'm sorry," Rand said then and for a second there was silence between them. Rand took a sip from the glass the bartender placed in front of him.
"As if you think I'd believe you weren't trying to mess with me," Cloud said then. "I suppose you also weren't trying to mess with me when you left those chess pieces on my window in Costa del Sol," he spoke critically, knowing there'd been nothing innocent about that. The man had been making a statement and it wasn't one that said I wish you all the best. "Was that supposed to scare me? Send a message?"
Rand seemed embarrassed at the mention of it. "No. That was..." he struggled to give some kind of explanation but quickly gave up. "I don't know. Maybe at the time. I wasn't thinking straight," he concluded and it only fueled Cloud's anger.
"Were you also not thinking straight when you tried to stop the implant removal procedure from happening too?" he fired at the man who again had an explanation that suggested Cloud was just misunderstanding all of his actions.
"I was worried about what would happen to you," he said and Cloud laughed at the thought.
"You mean like if I suddenly could understand all the messed up shit you and Hojo put me through after that implant went in?" he challenged and was surprised when he saw Rand nod slowly.
"That was probably part of it," he admitted while looking down into his drink. "But I also knew that reversing all the work that was done with you—"
"To me," Cloud corrected him abruptly.
"To you," Rand repeated in acceptance, "Would take a large toll on you," he concluded. "Seems I was right to be concerned. You don't look the same," he noted.
"Well you look like shit too, what's your excuse?" Cloud said back but Rand just took the insult and didn't respond. It was true, and he'd noticed it before at the college, Rand didn't look particularly well.
Cloud shook his head and tried to sniff back the emotions that were building and the tears that wanted out. A question entered into his mind then. "How did you even know I'd be in here?" he asked, forcing himself to look at the man so he had the best chance of reading if he was telling the truth or not when he gave his answer. Strangely, he didn't need to guess. The man came out with an answer he was sure was honest but it also shocked and sickened him.
"You have a short range transponder implanted in your back," Rand explained and Cloud felt like the blood was draining from his body as he listened. "When I heard you might be near I checked for the signal."
For a second Cloud just stared at him with his mouth partly open. Then he felt renewed anger. "You've been tracking me?" he accused and Rand shook his head.
"No. It's short range," Rand argued. "Within a mile maybe there's a signal transmitted on a specific frequency. I wouldn't know where you are outside that radius and only if I'm looking," he claimed.
"What?" Cloud replied. He felt like his head was spinning as he dug back into his memory quickly to try and pinpoint when it was that he would have been implanted with some kind of transponder. "I don't remember any implant in my back," he stated then.
"It's there," Rand assured him softly. "I put it there. You weren't awake," he said before taking a sip of liquor from the glass he held onto.
"Was it because you drugged me?" Cloud asked.
"Yes." Rand's short reply before another sip from the glass.
"And Hojo never knew about it?" Cloud questioned.
"No," Rand said. "No one other than me." There was something about the flatness of his honestly, the lack of emotion that really hurt the most.
"You really are sick," Cloud said as he stared upward again toward the game playing on the one screen. He had tears running out of his eyes then.
"It was important at the time that I knew where you were," Rand told him and he shook his head.
"Yeah you go ahead and say whatever to make yourself feel better," Cloud said while wiping away the few tears that were forging ahead.
"I wanted to know where you were," the man corrected himself then, taking ownership of the selfishness of it. "Why are you in Junon?" he asked after a few seconds of silence. "Did you come for the shares?"
"Oh right," Cloud said through a short dry laugh. "The shares. I'm such a moron for believing you would actually give them up like that," he stated. "That was your plan, huh? To use them as bait. You were never planning on transferring them were you?"
"No," Rand said softly. "There was no plan. I've signed the transfer documents. All the paperwork has been written up for you as the intended receiver of the shares. They're yours whenever you want them," he assured. "I only came looking for you here when I heard you were asking for me at my old residence. I had no idea you were even in the city until then," he claimed. "How did you know the address?" he inquired curiously.
"Doesn't matter," was all Cloud said in return.
"Are you alone?" Rand asked him then.
He furrowed his brow at the question. "Why?"
With a light shrug Rand said, "Just curious. Thought Z—Zack would be with you now that you're able to see each other freely."
Cloud eyed him critically. He'd almost said Z1 rather than Zack. "He can't leave Midgar thanks to you," he pointed out.
"Thanks to me?" Rand replied, looking clueless.
"The conviction he got because of you," Cloud reminded him.
"It wasn't my choice to charge him," Rand argued and Cloud snorted with contempt.
"Oh right, you're just innocent," he said sarcastically.
"I saw you together in Costa del Sol. You seemed happy to be reunited," the man told him, ignoring the jab.
"He's my best friend," Cloud stated firmly and clearly. "And you tried to turn me against him. You thought you could change how I feel about him, but you couldn't."
"How are things between you now?" was his following question and it had Cloud shaking his head.
"You don't get to ask me that!" he said quickly. "You don't get to ask me anything actually. I don't know why I'm even talking to you. Why don't you just get the hell out of here?"
"The storm," Rand said and Cloud rolled his eyes at him.
"Fine, I'll leave," he said then, not caring at all about the storm if it meant not having to look at Rand another second. He picked up the bottle in front of him to drain the rest of it quickly, not even really thinking. He'd been drinking past his limit already and the sudden guzzling of what he'd had left in the final bottle was probably going to have him regretting it shortly.
He'd only taken a few strides toward the exit when the power to the bar suddenly cut out with a thundering crack from outside and lightning that even through the darkened windows seemed to illuminate the whole room brightly. For a second the main power flickered back on before going out again and staying out. With the music and sounds from the games being televised silenced, the sound of the rain battering the building was much more apparent. The emergency lighting was casting an eerie red glow through the room then.
What followed were some sounds of surprise and a few people nearby stood up suddenly. Cloud thought he heard someone say something about flooding. He noticed people were looking down at the floor so he followed suit and saw what they did. Water from the street outside was pushing through under the front door of the building and over the tile floor under the tables.
Seeing the cold water running towards him and then parting to run around his feet when it reached them struck him suddenly with fear and everything else disappeared around him. As he stared down at the water he felt like he was somewhere else. He was back in Gongaga locked into the box in the floor and water was coming in all around him.
"Sorry everyone, the bar's gotta close!" a voice called from the front of the room. "Hate to kick you out into the street in the middle of a hurricane, but it's the rules."
Cloud barely heard him. He was panicking. His throat was closing in on him. The walls were closing in on him. He was going to drown in there if he didn't get out. There were too many people crowded in front of him. The sound of rolling thunder outside seemed to shake the whole building. He tried to stay calm but he was already hyperventilating. He was also half drunk and disoriented.
He found himself pushing through the people around him toward the back of the bar, looking for an alternate exit. He pushed his way through a door to the kitchen and heard someone yell after him, asking where he thought he was going. Escaping. It's all he could think about. He wasn't just trying to exit. He was trying to escape.
By the time he burst through the back door of the building out into an alleyway, he felt like he was on the verge of a heart attack. He was reaching inside his coat for his panic meds but his hand was shaking. He couldn't breathe. His vision seemed dark and his head was spinning. Rain was pouring from the sky so heavily that a stream of it was gathering in the middle of the alley and running toward the street. He was soaked almost from the moment he stepped out into it. Lightning was spreading across the dark night sky and the sound of the following thunder seemed to shake the ground beneath his feet.
He finally got hold of the bottle of medication in his one pocket and was able to force the lid open. Leaning against the back wall of the building, he put the bottle to his mouth, trying to keep the rain out of it, tipping it to get one of the pills onto his tongue. It was immediately upon swallowing that he realized he'd taken the wrong medication. It wasn't one of the panic meds.
"Shit," he said aloud while looking for the other bottle. Not even thinking, he took the intended panic medication as well, not able to really reason whether or not that was a bad thing to do. He didn't see which of his meds he'd accidently taken first and in the moment he really didn't care. He just wanted the feeling of extreme fear and imminent heart attack to go away.
As he tried to put the bottle of panic meds back into the inside pocket of his leather coat it slipped out of his wet hand and onto the ground, rolling quickly toward the streaming rainwater nearby.
Terrified of losing it or having it become waterlogged and the pills destroyed, he was quickly scrambling for it, throwing himself forward to his knees where he was able to reach out and bat the bottle away from the trailing waterway and to the wall of the building up ahead of him.
He could barely hear a voice calling his name over the rumbling of the storm and the heavy rain. No one around other than Rand knew his name so he knew it had to be him. The man stepped past him in the alley and retrieved the orange pill bottle he'd been trying to crawl his way to.
Still hyperventilating, he sat himself back on the ground and pressed his back to the building. He put his hands over his ears and shut his eyes as he tried to steady his breathing, hoping for the medication he'd taken to have an effect quickly.
Rand read the label on the bottle in his hand.
"You're taking this?" he questioned rhetorically before reaching the bottle down in front of him.
It took a moment of waving it at him for Cloud to open his eyes and realize what was in front of his face. He lowered his hands from his ears and took it back from Rand, hiding it away back inside his coat.
"You probably shouldn't be drinking while on medication like this," the man pointed out. He already knew that of course.
Cloud didn't answer him. He put a hand to his head instead and took deep slow breaths through his nose, finally feeling like he was getting calmer. Given how much he had drank that night, he was going to be feeling pretty sedated in a short amount of time, especially if what he'd accidently taken was one of his sleeping meds.
"Are you alright?" Rand asked him and he shook his head.
"Go away!" he shouted over the storm.
"I can't just leave you like this," the man told him.
"Like what?! Fucked up?!" he found himself yelling back at him before he started to cry. "This is your fault! You and Hojo!"
"Where are you staying?" Rand asked as he crouched in front of him. "What hotel?"
"Down there somewhere," Cloud replied gesturing blindly. Really he didn't know which direction he was even facing. "Just go away!" he ordered again.
"I live over there," Rand said then, pointing down the alley toward a newer condominium building about a block away peaking over the tops of the shorter buildings. "You can come get dry. Wait out the storm."
"I'm not going to where you live!" Cloud fired back at him fast. "Do you think I'm an idiot?"
"No," he said. "I know you aren't. You can leave whenever you want. I'm not going to try to stop you," he promised.
Cloud put his hands to his face and groaned loudly, though maybe only he could hear it through the pounding rain. Was he really going to do that? Put himself alone with Rand in his home. He was intoxicated, the streets were flooded. Unless he was prepared to stumble his way however many blocks he had to get back to the hotel, he was looking at sitting right where he was.
He didn't say anything as he struggled to stand himself up. He didn't say anything to Rand about whether he was accepting or refusing the offer. He just started walking in the general direction of that condo building, the man walking along with him. They didn't talk. Even if they had tried, the thunder and rain were still so loud. The rain was so cold it almost hurt. They were both soaked through, even their shoes, when they entered the building. It was clear immediately that the building was also under a power outage.
Just inside the door of the man's condo unit, Rand started to try to get his wet coat off of him and he pulled away from him sharply.
"Don't touch me," he warned and Rand held his hands up letting him know he wasn't going to attempt it a second time.
"I just want you to be comfortable," he said.
"I can be comfortable with my clothes on," he fired at the man. "That may be hard for you to imagine."
"Can you be comfortable freezing and soaking wet in them?" Rand asked in return.
"If it means they stay on, yeah," Cloud snapped.
"Fine," Rand spoke in reluctant acceptance. He pointed in the direction of a hallway entrance then. "There's a spare bedroom—" he started to say.
Cloud ignored him as he kicked his boots off and dragged his way toward the leather couch in the nearby living room. He sat down heavily into it and dropped his head back against its cushioned rest, placing his hands over his face. His head was spinning and he felt as though all the blood in his body was trying to sink to his feet at the same time. He wasn't feeling well and couldn't keep his thoughts straight. Everything was quickly getting hazy and dreamlike.
"You should drink some water," Rand told him, bringing him a glass that he tried to give him.
"No," was all Cloud said to that, refusing to take it. He wouldn't take anything Rand tried to give him to consume. He remembered well what that had led to many times in the apartment they lived in together in Midgar.
"Well is there anything I can get you at all?" Rand asked.
"I'll be leaving in a few minutes," he mumbled to him with his eyes closed. "As soon as the rain stops…"
If he could stay awake. He had no real choice. He couldn't stay there and yet his whole body felt like it was becoming heavy and immovable. Over the next half hour he listened with his eyes closed and his arms crossed protectively over his chest to Rand as he moved around the place, doing whatever he was doing. Getting changed out of his own wet clothes. Pouring himself a drink. Cleaning some things up in the dark. He didn't really know.
At some point he must have started drifting off, falling victim once again to the consequences of his poor decisions involving what he did choose to put in his own body and when. He didn't know how long he'd been dozing but he was waking suddenly to the feeling of his coat being pulled off of him.
When he opened his eyes a little he wasn't in the same position as when he'd sat himself down. The side of his face was pressing into a pillow propped against the arm of the couch. He was halfway between lying on his stomach and on his side. His right arm was already out of his coat and Rand was working on gently pulling it from his left arm.
He felt the man's one hand reaching under his body slightly to undo his pants. He had to make his brain work to make the rest of him respond, commanding his left hand to reach for Rand's, to stop him from what he was trying to do, his numb mind stupidly tried to convince him at first it wasn't worth the effort to move.
"Sssstop," he spoke mostly into the pillow at his head.
"It's okay," Rand told him.
Yeah...he used to tell him that a lot. When he didn't really want to do something.
He twisted himself onto his back as his pants were being unzipped and Rand slowly slid the wet denim off him.
Everything was fuzzy. Doubled. He could just barely make out what Rand was doing as he reached for something on the couch near his feet. There was a blanket in his hands that he unfolded and draped over his legs to his waist.
The man looked down at him then. Locked his eyes on his. He wasn't really able to fully gage the man's expression or judge what he was thinking from his body language because he was so out of it but the way he was breathing and staring, it was like he was trying to decide what he wanted to do. Or like he was looking at him for some kind of sign.
He started to lean in and that's when Cloud turned away from him, back onto his right side. He gripped the pillow at his head and shut his eyes tightly. Taking the blanket in his hand once more, Rand pulled it up over his torso, up close to his neck and knelt down on one knee then, next to the couch.
Cloud felt some of his wet hair being moved off his forehead. He didn't react to it, other than to feel tears building behind his closed eyelids again. He was scared to move. The man placed a hand on his left upper arm and leaned in close to him. Suddenly it sounded like the man was fighting back his own tears. He was breathing as though he was holding them back. Rand placed his forehead against his shoulder and exhaled deeply. His hand touched his back.
Cloud could barely hear what he said then. It was like his ears were as half-functioning as the rest of him. He still heard him though as he whispered brokenly against him.
"I'm so sorry for what I did to you."
